1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording disk drive designed to manage information based on a recording medium such as a hard disk (HD), for example.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A so-called load/unload mechanism is well known in the technical field of hard disk drives (HDDs). A head suspension is incorporated within a hard disk drive. The head suspension is designed to support a head slider at the tip end. When a magnetic recording disk stops rotating, the head slider moves to a position outside the outer periphery of the magnetic recording disk. The head suspension is supported on a ramp member located at a position outside the magnetic recording disk. The head slider is in this manner prevented from contact with the magnetic recording disk when the magnetic recording disk stays still.
A latch mechanism is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-313040, for example. The latch mechanism is designed to restrain the swinging movement of the head actuator inducing the movement of the head suspension. If an impact is applied to the hard disk drive at rest, the head suspension is reliably held on the ramp member. The head slider is prevented from falling from the ramp member toward the surface of the magnetic recording disk, so that the magnetic head and the magnetic recording disk are prevented from suffering from damages.
The head slider is kept away from the surface of the magnetic recording disk during the rotation of the magnetic recording disk. If a seek error occurs in the hard disk drive, for example, the hard disk drive first operates to move the head slider to a position outside the outermost recording track. The target recording track is subsequently sought again. The head suspension thus slides on the ramp member during the movement of the head slider. The ramp member suffers from abrasion due to the sliding movement of the head suspension. The aforementioned latch mechanism cannot prevent the sliding movement of the head suspension.